By Scott Taylor
Last Thursday Defence Minister Anita Anand made the announcement that Canada would be donating four Leopard 2 tanks to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This announcement came close on the heels of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz relenting to mounting international pressure and agreeing to provide Ukraine with 14 Leopard 2 tanks.
Just six days earlier at a NATO summit in Ramstein, Germany, Scholz had defiantly obstructed not only the donation of Germany's tanks but also any other NATO country from providing their own German-built Leopard 2's.
This reversal from Scholz came about after the UK and USA announced that they would be sending respectively their own Challenger and Abrams Main Battle Tanks to Ukraine. For the past two months Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been begging to have donations of western tanks to break the current stalemate in eastern Ukraine. At the top of Zelenskyy's wish list has been the Leopard 2 tanks. International media reports began a steady drum beat of stories which built an aura of the Leopard 2 being some sort of game-changing battlefield wonder weapon.
For their part, the Russians warned that any country providing such heavy weaponry to Ukraine would be escalating the conflict and would therefore face reprisals. Poland and Finland were the first two NATO countries that offered to provide Leopard 2's to Ukraine, but Germany realized that since they ultimately had control over any second export licence for those tanks, Russia could single them out for any retribution. The UK and US cleared the way by making donations of their tanks. Ergo, if Russia does take punitive measures, Germany will not be alone.
For the record, Zelenskyy and his generals were asking for 300 Leopard 2 tanks. Contrary to what the media would have you believe, the Leopard 2 is a capable heavy tank, but not a modern super weapon. The model which Canada is sending to Ukraine is the Leopard 2A4 which first entered service in the mid-1980's. As such they will be older than the Ukraine tankers manning them. Admittedly they are better than the Russian T-72 and T-80 Soviet era tanks of the same vintage. However as we have seen in the combat to date in Ukraine, the advent of drones and sophisticated anti-tank rockets have made the modern battlefield extremely dangerous for tanks.
Added to this is the fact that instead of a homogeneous force of 300 Leopard 2's, what has been pledged to date is just; 14 Challenger tanks from the UK, 31 Abrams from the US, 14 Leopard 2's from Germany and the additional 4 from Canada. Presumably Poland, Finland and a few other NATO members will add Leopard 2's to that list but we are looking at around 100 tanks in total. Worse yet is the reality that this donation includes three distinctly different types of tanks. This amounts to a stupidly wide spectrum of equipment for a Ukraine Army that is already trying to logistically support a huge range of weapon systems and vehicles already donated to them during this war.
The Challenger tank for instance, was only ever used by the UK although a number were exported to Oman. The ammunition calibre for the main gun on the Challenger is not NATO standard. There is a good reason why armies strive to minimize the diversity of their combat equipment. In addition to the headache of re-supply, maintenance obtaining spare parts etc, there is also the challenge of training crews on a variety of platforms. For those expecting these new tanks to be rushed into battle against the Russians, think again.
According to US doctrine it takes 22 weeks to fully train an efficient tank crew. Granted the Ukraine tankers have had 11 months of actual combat experience in their Soviet era tanks. However, if they are to understand and best utilize the advantages of these western standard tanks, they will still require weeks of intensive training.
The fact that the Canadian Army has 82 Leopard 2 tanks but is hard pressed to part with just 4 of them to Ukraine is indicative of how neglected our armoured forces have been since we quit the combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011. If main battle tanks still have a place on the modern battlefield, I would suggest that Minister Anand commits to more than simply replacing the 4 Leopard 2's that we are giving away to Ukraine.
